1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to postal service cancellation of postage stamps, and more particularly to pre-inked stamps used for this purpose. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to an apparatus which allows a postal letter carrier to easily and effortlessly cancel postage stamps on mail pieces when in the field on foot delivering mail to addressees.
2. Description of the Related Art
Payment for mail is, in most cases, indicated on mail pieces, such as for example envelopes and postcards, by usage of one or more postage stamps affixed to the mail piece. The postal service cancels these stamps to indicate the stamps have been used and can no longer be used again. Cancellation of postage stamps is of paramount importance to the postal service. Unless the postal service cancels each and every stamp passing through its system, it risks addressors reusing stamps without detection, thus seriously eroding, or even collapsing, its funding base. Accordingly, it is essential for the postal service to ensure cancellation of the postage stamps affixed to each and every mail piece it handles through its system.
This postage stamp cancellation process may be automated or may be by hand; in any event, inevitably some pieces of mail get through sortation and delivery to the destination post office without the postage stamps thereof having been cancelled. The letter carrier who is charged with delivery of mail to addressees is the postal service's last line of control to ensure each and every postage stamp has been cancelled before it has been delivered to an addressee.
The postal service recognizes that a number of mail pieces having uncancelled stamps routinely appear (along with, of course, the vast majority of mail pieces having properly cancelled postage stamps) at the letter carrier's sortation station at the destination post office. To this end, the postal service provides a pre-inked cancellation ink stamp having a series of elongated ridges forming a series of spaced apices which provide a contact location with the postage stamps of a mail piece. The back of the cancellation ink stamp has a rear surface, opposite the ridges, which is adhesively affixed to some surface at the sortation station, such as a wall surface. Should the letter carrier detect a mail piece having an uncancelled stamp, the letter carrier simply touches the postage stamp to the apexes to thereby impart cancellation ink onto the postage stamp.
Unfortunately, when out in the field on foot delivering mail to addressees, the letter carrier who detects a mail piece having an uncancelled stamp is almost powerless to now, at this late juncture, cancel the postage stamp. Using a ballpoint pen to strike across the postage stamp is not only crude but generally ineffective and very cumbersome when carrying a satchel full of mail and a pack of ready to deliver mail in one hand. Using a pre-inked cancellation ink stamp out in the field is too messy to even consider unless it is somehow placed in a lidded box, analogously to a "pocket case" of Des Moines Stamp Mfg. Co. of Des Moines, Iowa. Nonetheless, even if the cancellation ink stamp is contained in a lidded box, it would be too awkward to be used by letter carriers when on foot delivering mail to addressees, since many dextrously demanding manipulations would be needed to find the lidded box, open it, place the mail piece into proper registration with the cancellation ink stamp so that the postage stamp does, in fact, get cancellation inked, close the lidded box, and then put the lidded box away somewhere. If soon thereafter another mail piece is again found to have uncancelled postage stamps, the letter carrier would, no doubt, trade the inconvenience of the lidded box for the crudeness of the ballpoint pen. The addressee would then, no doubt, be aghast at the unprofessional way in which the postal service has cancelled the postage stamp on his or her piece of mail.
The problem of mail pieces having uncancelled postage stamps reaching the letter carrier when out in the field will undoubtedly become acute when delivery-point-sequencing (DPS) is implemented by the postal service, wherein the letter carrier will only first see the mail pieces when out in the field; any last chance to detect and cancel postage stamps at the destination post office being then lost.
Clearly, a truly practical solution to the problem of field cancellation of postage stamps is greatly needed today and will be even more so tomorrow.